Comments on: Why is this left and right?http://climateaudit.org/2007/11/08/why-is-this-left-and-right/
by Steve McIntyreTue, 03 Mar 2015 20:05:30 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.com/By: The Inoculated Mind » Blog Archive » Monday Madness: Stop Suppressing the Vote!http://climateaudit.org/2007/11/08/why-is-this-left-and-right/#comment-116230
Tue, 13 Nov 2007 18:10:50 +0000http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2327#comment-116230[…] are just “auditing” evolutionary biology – keeping biologists on their toes. Why, then, if Steve McIntyre was so concerned with people getting their science right, would he hardly […]
]]>By: University Update - Al Gore - Why is this left and right?http://climateaudit.org/2007/11/08/why-is-this-left-and-right/#comment-116229
Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:36:13 +0000http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2327#comment-116229[…] Clark Why is this left and right? » This Summary is from an article posted at Climate Audit – by Steve McIntyre on Thursday, […]
]]>By: Steve McIntyrehttp://climateaudit.org/2007/11/08/why-is-this-left-and-right/#comment-116228
Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:53:54 +0000http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2327#comment-116228OK, everybody’s vented. I’ve deleted a few posts; I should have deleted more.
]]>By: John Muirhttp://climateaudit.org/2007/11/08/why-is-this-left-and-right/#comment-116227
Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:50:11 +0000http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2327#comment-116227Sorry to inject a bit of sanity and reason into this discussion, but you guys are apparently sitting in a cave convincing yourselves that the earth is the center of the universe. This is the most bizarre, frat-hug, ego boosting website that I’ve ever seen. Wow – you are actually twisting reality enough to make you the “skeptics”… don’t you understand anything?? – You are supporting the world’s largest hegemonic system -ha! you’re not skeptical… you’re sheep! Its the scientists, those who understand science and who trust scientists, we are the skeptics of this system because we are skeptical of the myth (which you all seem to believe) that our actions have no real consequences…. you’re idiots…. you think you’re skeptical of some big popular panic, but in reality, you’re just brainwashed under a predominant cultural hegemony. – I don’t know anyone who’s in a panic over climate change – and I work for an environmental lawfirm. But we are doing things to change our impact – riding bikes, using less elelctricity, etc. This is a reasonable response – where’s the panic? You yourselves are creating the boogy man of a panic – apparently just so you can be “skeptical” of it.

Um – so what percent of the world’s climate scientists have to endorse the IPCC for you to question your beliefs? And what percent of the IPCC climate change models will have to pan out accurately for your to realize that the globe is changing in some unprecedented ways?

What you need to do is get out of your cave (you’re limiting yourselves in so many ways) and travel around a bit. Go ahead – don’t be scared of the increasingly extreme weather patterns – see for yourselves how our climate is changing. How are farmers in africa dealing with prolonged droughts?…you might have trouble getting into Chad at the moment. How are slum dwellers in india dealing with more frequent floods? How are islanders dealing with their warming waters and devistating algi blooms? How are artic indigenous dealing with the deteriorating ecoysystems?

You understand, of course, that climate change isn’t a 1:1 ratio, right? No boys, this is what we in science call “exponential growth” – meaning that a small change in one variable can lead to large changes in outcomes, as well as triggering a series of unpredicted results as well.

It would be nice to think that our actions have no consequences. Unfortunately, that’s not our reality. Someday, you might realize how wrong you are… I hope we still have time to correct our behavior.

]]>By: benghttp://climateaudit.org/2007/11/08/why-is-this-left-and-right/#comment-116226
Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:47:31 +0000http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2327#comment-116226Steve_M, sorry for being just a lurker of late — too many good & faster posters here at CA now. But congratulations are in order, regardless of what the final poll results are (I don’t care & don’t think you do either). Bottom line is CA is getting more exposure & credibility, as it deserves.

PS The “response” by PZ Myer is ugly and revealing. And I’m disappointed by P Plait’s responses — he undermines his own purposes on BA.

1. Why does the communist party in America call itself the “Green Party”?
2. Why are the Sierra Club, WWF, and Greenpeace all left wing organizations?
3. Who formed “earth day” in the 1970s?
4. Who was behind the Inconvenient Truth movie?
5. Who wants nothing more than for the UN to usurp power?
6. Who controls the Universities and teacher’s unions?
7. Who makes up the majority of main stream media organizations?

The right wing care about the environment, but they also believe in truth, God, freedom, and Capitalism. The left wing are always looking for a way to blame everything on consumerism, capitalism, and evil white anglo-saxon men. Your site is about finding truth rather than assigning blame or promoting an agenda, which is a good thing to people who care about truth.

Ive said on many occasions that, if I had a big policy job, I would be guided by the views expressed by large institutions. Unlike some skeptics, I dont argue that decisions should be deferred pending perfect certainty. I have business experience and know that people make decisions all the time with uncertainty – you have to. At the same time, if youre going to make effective decisions, you need to have the best possible information. And I vehemently disagree that scientists can use the big picture as a justification for being careless with their details. People should try their hardest to get the details right as well as the big picture.

If one could divide the opposing camps by science and politics, I judge that the political issue would divide along the lines of whether and how big a mess one thinks that government imposed attempts at mitigating AGW would cause, while for those who can completely keep their political inclinations out of their arguments, I judge the divide would occur along the lines of how well we think we can quantify the uncertainty of AGW forecasts/predictions/scenarios/proxies/models.

I am a self-admitted libertarian whose views on the AGW issue are certainly related to my views on how well I judge government attempts at mitigation would succeed. I would need more convincing evidence than those who see a very large and expanding role for government in these issues, regardless of the uncertainties in the science findings that would be used to instigate such actions.

My view, when I attempt to exclude my political inclinations, comes down to seeing climate science having a long way to go before we can make predictions with reasonably small uncertainty limits in either the direction of little or large changes in future climate. My doubts increase exponentially when it comes to predicting the beneficial versus detrimental effects of a climate with increasing average global temperatures and doing it for relatively localized areas of the globe. The push as a consensus to see only the detrimental effects of climate change gives me great pause in accepting these generalized conclusions.

Back when views on Iraq were more evenly divided, I sometimes compared what I do to being a CIA analyst arguing that sometimes an aluminum tube is just an aluminum tube and not evidence of WMD. That wouldnt mean that proponents of the war couldnt argue the matter using different arguments or that the war was or wasnt justified, or that the subsequent occupation of Iraq was or wasnt botched. All it means is that policy-makers shouldnt be basing their decisions on questionable information about aluminum tubes. This was a line of argument that used to rub right-wing people who liked part of my message the wrong way, but I hope that it says something about me.

And this is where I see a contradiction in the political division on AGW. When the example is Iraq, many, who would appear to be in hurry to have government attempts at mitigation of AGW, see the folly in the rush to military action and nation building in Iraq, but appear less clear-sighted, at least from my perspective, in their views of AGW and particularly of attempts at mitigation. On the other hand, many of those, who would want more certainty in the issue of AGW before proceeding, do not appear to have, or have had, the same reservations about the Iraq issues.

]]>By: aeronathanhttp://climateaudit.org/2007/11/08/why-is-this-left-and-right/#comment-116222
Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:27:24 +0000http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2327#comment-116222Comparing the differences in responses between PZ, BA and here told me everything I needed to know. Here we have a reasonable thoughtful response. There you see vitriol and attacks (moreso at PZ than BA but still there). No true scientist would ever oppose further examination of the available evidence just because the examiner may not completely agree with the initial conclusions.
]]>By: Dinosaurhttp://climateaudit.org/2007/11/08/why-is-this-left-and-right/#comment-116221
Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:27:02 +0000http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2327#comment-116221#14

Confidence also comes from the weak, shoddy and highly selective arguments presented by Realclimate. If theirs represent some of the strongest arguments for AGW, then we dont have a lot to fear from AGW. (Classic example: Great Global Warming Swindle film was: biased, distorted, misleading, supported by oil producers, etc; Al Gores film well he didnt get everything right, but most things were right and the basic message was right – a nice film that we should show in all our schools).

Where they turfed me because there were more cat3+ hurricanes in the 50’s than 90’s, LOL.